That Max Carlish / Pete Doherty documentary that was on UK TV...

Because you're better than that.

What Dadaismus said, except delete the words "The article Max Carlish wrote in."

"It was then that I realised just how smart he was - he rhymed green with spleen and even understood the medieval meaning of the word spleen."

Now seek out Max Carlish and put him out of our misery

How can people get that turned on by fame/celebrity by association, I shall never understand.

I mean, heck, I've met some famous people. But I never felt the need to move into their lives, be their court jester, and make deals or films just to be "together"...

'Charlie is my Darling' has certainly been shown on BBC2 within (my) living memory - it's no Dylan/Pennebaker jam, let's put it like that

lastly, pete looks fucking gross.

Best thing anyone has ever said ever.

Doherty: My Uncle Reg's buried there, he set himself on fire.

Dawlish. That's immolation, self immolation.

Doherty: Nah, he set himself on fire.

fact

Doherty = bloke. That's as much as you get from this documentary. He obviously has too many sycophants to do anything other than be mildly polite to most of them, unless they get in the way of what he's doing. (case in point: Nutter dancing on stage to moshable track = OK. Nutter shouting out while quieter track is playing = not OK).

Carlish was being tolerated for the first part of the show. If that's sex, I've slept with everybody in the world, including youse.

who said this? shane macgowan? bobby gillespie?

That was a joke you twit.

By comparison, that is.

seriously, what that programme depicted last night was the absolute antithesis of everything i believe about music. ugly fucking trash.

Pete just seemed pathetic and charmless. His hangers-on were even worse: "This isn't going to be another Kurt Cobain! huh huh! Do you KNOW what I mean?!" The only person who came out of this whole thing with any dignity was the Babyshambles drummer (and maybe Max's dear old mum).

...plus all the "I know pete better than you' sobbing". It was like watching a screaming Take That fan. He gives me the creeps...

It made me uncomfortable and slightly sick to watch it - possibly because Carlish reminded me so much of someone I used to know, who dragged me along on their fandom trip, stalking a popstar in an effort to try and become them.

I mean, who is Carlish? I don't know him, or what he's done before, whether he has a BAFTA or not. To me, he seemed to be like one of those film geeks who spend hours carefully crafting remakes of Return of the Jedi or something - except he seems to idolise and recreate the work of early Michael Moore or Nick Broomfeld (sp?) and other stalkumentaries.

While Doherty always seemed to be doing exactly the same thing in a musical sense - a little bit of Baudelaire and De Quincy mixed with mashed up bits of the Clash and the Smiths, a Stars In Your Eyes version of Jim Morrison meets Sid Vicious.

They honestly seemed to deserve each other. Carlish filming himself playing air guitar in his room, Doherty refering to his heroin habit as "opium". Carlish so obviously wanted to *become* Doherty, getting onstage and claiming he felt like a rock star, yet freaking out at the first sign of a (clearly managerial instigated) stage invasion.

James Milord (manager bloke) came off like the most unpleasant specimen of humanity imaginable, every cliche about rock managers being parasites and vampires. But honestly, how is Doherty *not* a slumming-it rich kid? That was the most interesting thing to me about it all, that he's a private school educated Major's son with gobloads of A-levels who used to write bloody poetry! How does *he* make a convincing "East End street urchin"? It's as contrived as Damon Albarn's Mockney. A sixth form poet and a drama student reinventing the wheel. It makes a lot more sense now.

(Not that that bothers me - the best Bohemians are those escaping priviliged lives.)

Anyway, it was sick. But still very compelling.

Which just hightlighted how close this veered into Alan Partridge territory. Thought this would help me understand the worship that goes on at Doherty's feet. It didn't. The fact that he was NME's hero of the year last year I thought was disgusting.

While Max had the "backing of channel 4", he was toleratable.

When it was found that he did not and never had, he was shut out for 1) bullshitting 2) jumping onstage and basically getting in the way 3) acting like he was Pete's best mate / sexbuddy

Also, early on, Max had a reasonable amount of access without having any C4 credentials, just by being given the benefit of the doubt. Do bands do this, thesedays?

He got beat up for selling pics to the tabloids, and having the brass neck to turn up at Pete's place to be his mate again. (While Pete was thinking it was Kate at the door, probably didn't help...)

I was expecting it to be utter and complete toss, and it was actually totally, utterly mesmerising in a carcrash sort of way.
- kate

totally. i guess i know too many people driving similar cars in a similarly wreckless fashion... ugh. what jez noted, especially. it was painful to watch, because i've seen people get so caught up in the *feeling that they think they're a part of it all, rather than jester or hanger on. for the first time, i was glad my natural lack of self-esteem has (mostly) always prevented me from thinking bands might *actually like me as a person, as opposed to, you know, a friend.

OTFM!!! the whole thing seemed totally *sick. the ex-drummer seemed the only vaguely sane/tolerable/non-craven one of the lot.

the show encapsulated a lot of the things that make me hate rock'n'roll, and have made me think maybe i need a different career that actually, y'know, matters...

its like that autogaph hunter in Almost Famous, so desperately in awe of his heroes. mostly, musicians have just seemed like *ordinary people, talented yes but not *worth 'more' than you or me. when people lose sight of this, i start to feel physically ill.

I think that's what made it really hit home for me. I mean, I pointed out in my earlier post that I'd seen this woman I used to know, basically in the throes of a nervous breakdown, latch onto a pop star and start pulling the "he's my best mate, I know him better than anyone, he understands me better than *you* do" crap.

It's precisely because I've seen so many people get caught up in that, that it was so fascinating to watch. I felt a kind of sense of vindication for not getting caught up in it, or distancing myself from them when they started to get scary.

And I mean, yeah, that's another thing that is so sick and fascinating. That The Libs are *not* a big or important band, yeah, they're *not* The Smiths - but they have become this huge media entity. Partly because of who is associated with them (Rough Trade, Alan McGee, all the indie cred) but more because of their own myth-making - they are a tabloid entity rather than a serious musical phenomenon. And I find that fascinating.

it was revelatory to me... has it been mentioned anywhere before?? is it because there isn't an oasis-a-like rival band to point this out?

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:

Doherty shouldn't have hit Max.

I bet he wouldn't dare hit Max's mum.

I wouldn't feel guilty about selling those pictures.

Why doesn't Pete shoot up? The pictures would be better.

I think Sid Vicious *was* a better songwriter.

I objected to the expression, 'shagging a supermodel'.

The concerts looked really bloody awful.

I don't think I would like Max to be my media studies teacher, but I expect he got some very good teaching material about media manipulation from this episode.

It was all very sad.

I woukld have preferred to just see the footage he'd shot without all the cosmetic packaging and talking heads and that. I'm sure it would have been much more moving, in a way.

Plus, delusions of another 'award'?

i.e. The 'being shouted "Wanker" at by passing cars. But that's the 'price' of fame, just as much as being asskissed by um asskissers...

He was loving being a TV talking head wasn't he.

I think there is a direct line between this programme and that Comedy Terrorist bloke whose name I can't remember.

Anyway, it was sick. But still very compelling

Masonic Boom basically OTM in all she said. Excpet for understating how bloody hilarious the thing was at many points (the tiny guitar scene being a highlight in this regard). I didn't know of this Max bloke and wasn't sure if the whole thing wasn't a spoof for quite a whil, as with American Movie.

I am intrigued by that world, of rock star worship, hangers-on and suchlike. I thought this was a pretty good insight. Fucking weird.

Carlish's mental illness (it seemed like something beyond manic depression to me, but what do I know?) made one as a viewer feel more than a little uncomfortable with the whole thing, especially when it ended with footage of him making a fool of himself to 'Together in Electric Dreams'.

But yeah, the weirdest programme I've stumbled across in some time.

I think there's a little bit of Max Carlish inside all of us. Inside Pete, up Janet.

I wonder how much involvement Carlish had in the making of the documentary about him. How weird that he got his desire to be on Channel 4, but as object, not subject. More exactly, I wonder if he chose those bits of him being mental at his mum's house (not sure which was more disturbing - the air guitar or the "Max, on Pete, up Kate" rant which was repeated twice during the programme) were chosen specifically by him, or if some Channel 4 bod just happened to pick those out of miles of tape that he shot.

for anyone who hasnt seen it

That fat-ish guy who they keep using as a talking head has HORRIBLE front teeth.

hxxp://isohunt.com/torrents.php?ihq=stalking+doherty&ext=&op=and

(but change hxxp to http.)

wow i'm glad someone said it, that right there illustrates that a lot of people are reflexively ready to dismiss the guy. he seems cool for someone in his position to me, and either you get him in that specific moment, or you don't. and there is an interview with kirsty something or other where he comes off pretty well. people just want to hate this guy straight away. even albarn, one of the previously most hated, hates him.